Orbital Resonance (Century Next Door, #1)

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Orbital Resonance (Century Next Door #1)

3.76 of 5 stars 3.76 · rating details · 232 ratings · 22 reviews

Melpomene Murray's concerns are those of any teenager: homework, friends, dates. But Melpomene lives on the Flying Dutchman, an asteroid colony located thousands of miles from an Earth almost destroyed by disease, war, and pollution. She and her spaceborn classmates are humanity's last hope, and Mel's just starting to realize how heavy a responsibility that is. Her parents...more

Paperback, 245 pages

Published December 15th 1992 by Tom Doherty Associates (first published December 1991)

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May 21, 2012 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in October 1999.

The front cover of this edition bears an endorsement from Orson Scott Card comparing Barnes to Robert A. Heinlein. On the basis of earlier Barnes novels, the John Brunner-like Mother of Storms and the brutal Kaleidoscope Century, this may seem rather a strange comparison to make. Yet Orbital Resonance is distinctly reminiscent of the best of Heinlein's books for teenagers, a tradition to which Card's own Ender's Game perhaps also belongs. (Orb...more Originally published on my blog here in October 1999.

The front cover of this edition bears an endorsement from Orson Scott Card comparing Barnes to Robert A. Heinlein. On the basis of earlier Barnes novels, the John Brunner-like Mother of Storms and the brutal Kaleidoscope Century, this may seem rather a strange comparison to make. Yet Orbital Resonance is distinctly reminiscent of the best of Heinlein's books for teenagers, a tradition to which Card's own Ender's Game perhaps also belongs. (Orbital Resonance has a low-gravity game which is quite similar to that battle room in Ender's Game.

Set on a space station designed to aid the colonisation of Mars, the background to Orbital Resonance is a ruined Earth in only a few decades time. The satellite is the last bastion of the civilisation of mankind; there a group of gifted children are being conditioned to become the new elite of the human race. The novel takes the form of the journal of one of these children, Melpomene Murray, as they approach adulthood and a crisis in the form of a new arrival from Earth in their class.

Barnes also makes points about the way that the West lives today, by looking at how the relatively affluent children on the satellite see the lives of those remaining on Earth's surface, a place of continual famine and desperate want. Part of the school curriculum is a subject intended to enhance the children's understanding of and empathy for what is going on, yet they are virtually unaffected by the video footage, merely making such callous and stupid comments as "why don't they just grow more food?". They may be gifted, but they find it exceptionally difficult to understand any point of view different from the culture conditioned on them; another example is the complete incomprehension the narrator has as to why her word processor might possibly query the use of the word "clitoris" as "audience-inappropriate" (after all, girls on Earth must have them too).

Like Heinlein, Barnes manages to write convincingly as a bright teenage girl. (As a man in his thirties, I may not be the best judge of this, but he at least convinced me.) The sentimentality of Heinlein is absent, and Melpomene's crushing discovery of the years of manipulation at the hands of her parents is strongly handled.(less)

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Aug 28, 2011 Allyson rated it 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read much science fiction, but I'm glad a friend passed this book along to me. While it wasn't on the level of Ender's Game (which I think will always be my favorite sci-fi book no matter what), I'm glad I had the opportunity to add this book to my list of reads. Melpomene Murray and Randy Scwartz, and all the children aboard the Flying Dutchmen were interesting characters. It was really cool to see how they viewed life, especially in contrast to Theophilius, a groundhog (a person from...more I haven't read much science fiction, but I'm glad a friend passed this book along to me. While it wasn't on the level of Ender's Game (which I think will always be my favorite sci-fi book no matter what), I'm glad I had the opportunity to add this book to my list of reads. Melpomene Murray and Randy Scwartz, and all the children aboard the Flying Dutchmen were interesting characters. It was really cool to see how they viewed life, especially in contrast to Theophilius, a groundhog (a person from Earth). While it sometimes felt like the main character Melpomene was kind of harsh and uncaring, I soon realized that it wasn't intentional and she was just part of a society I couldn't fully comprehend. And just when I thought she was an emotional void, she pulled through and showed that she, and a select few of her classmates, were actually brainwashed and engineered to have more emotional awareness of their surroundings and were better able to distinguish right from wrong. I didn't give this book 5 stars because it wasn't one of my favorites. I didn't give it 4 stars because some parts were long and redundant and almost made me stop reading it, but once I got half way through the story it picked up. 3 stars seems like a fair rating. It had very real, fleshed out characters, the world created by the author didn't feel false or half thought out, and the underlying meaning of the story was excellent.

************MILD SPOILER ALERTS BELOW--DON'T READ IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ THIS BOOK****************

While at first, I thought the idea of doing everything for the good of the ship was a little ridiculous, it started to make sense later in the story. There was a lot of bullying and teasing going on in the story. This wasn't normal for the children of the Flying Dutchmen because it wasn't conducive to the good of the ship. When Theophilius arrives and starts the tradition of creating cliques, teasing people, and bullying it's almost foreign to Melpomene. Sure, Randy starts out as a bully and might beat kids up when he's angry, but I think this is out of his control as it seems he's been engineered to behave this way, and when he realizes that he's done wrong he does attempt to make amends.

When the parents leave at the end of the story to let the children govern themselves, I thought it was completely irrational and insane because they are still children. However, the more and more I thought about it, they really were the best people for the job. It's impossible to try to govern a society you don't fully understand because you weren't born or raised as part of it. Even though the children were children and still had a lot to learn, they were raised to function as a community and contribute to that community. On Earth, things were very different and it's almost a sick school tradition to exclude individuals from groups based on class, intelligence, appearance and so forth, and not many people care about the good of the community; it was nice to see that in a society of the future.

There was a lot to think about during/ after reading this book. I'll probably add more later, but I just wanted to get the main ideas that stuck with me.

(less)

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Jul 07, 2009 Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, sci-fi

I really enjoyed this read. The beginning threw me off a bit-the story is told as though written by the main character. The main character is also quite young (12) although people reach adult status earlier in the novel.

It also uses made-up slang, which I usually find very annoying and overused in most books, but it wasn't annoying in this one. For one thing, there were only a couple of slang words, which were easy to pick up from the context and weren't used so much that they became irritating...more

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Jul 18, 2010 Jan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although the main character is thirteen-year-old Melpomene Murrary, this is not a story for young people. Although she lives on an asteroid colony desperately needed to supply a dying Earth, this is not a story about space and space-faring. It is very much a story of social engineering in the mode of Ender's Game. It asks the same question, what would you do to a group of young people who must must fulfill the desperate mission of Earth? Instead of competitive geniuses though, these engineers cr...more

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Oct 14, 2010 Rose rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, coming-of-age

"Orbital Resonance" by John Barnes examines the life of its protagonist, 13-year old Melpomeme Murray, in a combination of a coming of age tale and sociological and political commentary about an alternate future involving a rapidly degenerating Earth. I didn't know what to expect for this, being my first Barnes novel overall, but I was pleasantly surprised and drawn into many of the moments within this work.

Melopomeme is a likable lead to follow. I'll fully admit that I liked and identified with...more "Orbital Resonance" by John Barnes examines the life of its protagonist, 13-year old Melpomeme Murray, in a combination of a coming of age tale and sociological and political commentary about an alternate future involving a rapidly degenerating Earth. I didn't know what to expect for this, being my first Barnes novel overall, but I was pleasantly surprised and drawn into many of the moments within this work.

Melopomeme is a likable lead to follow. I'll fully admit that I liked and identified with her voice and natural poise for relating her experiences (even down to the special language she uses, like "Pos-def"). She's described in the way of a typical teenager - having school, friends, and other concerns, though she lives within an asteroid colony called "The Flying Dutchman". Given the terrible state of Earth with dwindling resources, an outbreak of mutAIDS, ongoing war and hostility among other factors, generations are being transferred to the asteroid colonies in order to save humanity as they know it. Melopmeme tells of her day to day trials and tribulations. Some of it is very interesting, especially the ongoing trials of Melpomeme helping a new recruit adjust to his life on the colony despite the social stigma that others assign to him (Randy). It operates very much like what the social clique system operates with teens in today's society, though having more weight since the environment weighs much more on delegating these kids have to work together as a central group. There are other things like the games that are vivid and interesting to watch unfold. Barnes has an intriguing blend of imagination as well as commentary about the weight of the issues he depicts.

However, I have to say there were many times when the work tends to dwindle too much, and it took me a while to get through those parts in order to hit the next point where it became intriguing again. It takes slice of life, political/social commentary, and science fiction and wraps it all into a web of experiences for the heroine, though I think the last chapter could've amounted to more than what it did, to my chagrin. The book also shows its age in places since it was penned in 1991, so there may be aspects where the ideals seem outdated or odd with the mention of certain years.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed most of the ride that "Orbital Resonance" took me on, and appreciated some of the messages that it put forward. I know it's the first book in a related (but not necessarily connected) series, and I'm interested enough to pursue the other books to see where they go.

Overall score: 3/5(less)

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Nov 27, 2012 Tamahome rated it 3 of 5 stars

Explanation of my desire to read (animated whiteboard review):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMkeZJ...

Ack. Out of print and no ebook.

Ordered 'new' from Amazon for $6, dammit.

Got it in the mail today!

page 47/245 - Flying through it so far. Very similar to those old Heinlein juveniles. Sometimes I get a little confused with the science and the slang, but a lot of it is like sf candy, told from a young but very smart girl's point of view. It takes place on an asteroid converted into a space ship or...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Casey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Surprisingly enjoyable for a quick science fiction YA novel. The jargon gets really grating sometimes, but the mechanics of the setting and the grind of working through schoolwork, not to mention the 'engineering' are all both novel and make the plot more interesting to move through. Didn't like the games etc, smacked of Enders Game, and wasn't a big fan of the seeming need to explain each class in detail - I get it, these kids are superhuman.

It had all the aspects of a book I don't get into, ex...more

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Jan 09, 2008 Wealhtheow rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: think_galactic, anyone who likes politics in their scifi

Recommended to Wealhtheow by: Julian

Shelves: sci-fi, sociology, ya

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 23, 2008 Gar rated it 3 of 5 stars

Part of John Barnes' "Century Next Door/Meme Wars" un-series (as they're not sequels, simply related and connected). Definitely the most lighthearted and least apocalyptic of the three I've read (still tracking down the fourth), but also the least satisfying.

At this point in the world's timeline, Earth is pretty much a shambles, its ecology thrashing due to some extrapolated quasi-weapons technology and thus most heavy industry moved off-world. The Flying Dutchman is a "transfer ship" designed t...more

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May 01, 2012 Sean Arthur rated it 4 of 5 stars

A sweet book about a young girl growing up in a dystopian future. Interesting in how understated it is: our young heroine thinks things are perfectly normal, has no idea that this future seems awful to the reader, and has no notions of revolution and going back to how things were.

Good stuff.

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Mar 26, 2011 Andreas rated it 1 of 5 stars

Tale of some youngsters growing up in an asteroid habitat. I never really understood the point of this one. I think the morale is that kids will inherit the world, and parents should not pollute their brains with old ways of thinking. But it is so dull. Pah.

http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=386

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May 09, 2013 Zechy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, young-adult

I loved this book. Lost it, or gave it away somewhere along the line. Forgot all about it, went crazy looking for it, and I finally just found it. Don't know if I will still like this book if I read it now, but it was awesome when I was a younger.

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Oct 08, 2011 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: any fans of sci-fi

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy

Great story by one of my favorite authors. The main character, Melpomene, is a teenager growing up on a world called the Flying Dutchman, an asteroid colony, at a time when the Earth her parents left behind has been ravaged by war and pollution.

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Oct 31, 2011 Jeff Youngstrom added it

my review from 27 October 1995
my review from 13 June 1999

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Nov 23, 2007 Camilla rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

A coming-of-age story told by a 13-year-old girl raised on a space station. The book deals with the socially-indoctrinated children born on the station, and their conflict with their Earth-born parents and the new boy in class.

I was a little surprised that I enjoyed this as much as I did -- since the story is told in the form of an autobiography, the writing is often awkward, which I thought would annoy me. Instead, it helps make the protagonist's character more real.

I'd recommend it for teenage...more

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Apr 16, 2010 Joe rated it 2 of 5 stars

Had potential, but never seemed to realize it.

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Mar 14, 2010 Jenne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jenne by: Jo Walton

Shelves: sf

More teenage space engineers! But not four-armed, sadly.

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Oct 16, 2009 Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars

Damn good science fiction.

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Oct 22, 2008 Julian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, young-adult

It's hard to really say why, but I think this has been done by others and done better. It's the story of kids on a space station who are going to inherit, basically, the remains of fucked-up humanity. Oh wait, I think my problem is that I read Beggars in Spain and this is a bit too along the same lines but can't quite compare. Maybe it's unfair to judge based on that but I can't help it. It was still an interesting story and worth reading.

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Sep 18, 2011 Andrew Howell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Good short sci fi novel. Reminded me of Ender's game.

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Dec 25, 2007 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: SciFi fans

I read this book a long time ago and can barely remember it. That probably tells you all you need to know about it's greatness. lol

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Jul 18, 2010 Christian rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this back when it was first released and loved it, but it's been so long that I'm re-reading it to see what I think today. It remains pretty interesting. Also, the author created a great slang for the 13-year-old main character and her friends living on an asteroid in Earth/Mars orbit. Lim koapy. Pos-def.

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May 21, 2013 Rebecca marked it as to-read

May 12, 2013 Kimberly N rated it 3 of 5 stars

May 11, 2013 Mark Pitman rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 10, 2013 Zoloft rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 10, 2013 Craig Dyni added it

May 09, 2013 Caitlin Gutilla marked it as to-read

May 01, 2013 Ashley Schwartau marked it as to-read

Apr 27, 2013 Melanie marked it as to-read

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About John Barnes

John Barnes (born 1957) is an American science fiction author, whose stories often explore questions of individual moral responsibility within a larger social context. Social criticism is woven throughout his plots. The four novels in his Thousand Cultures series pose serious questions about the effects of globalization on isolated societies. Barnes holds a doctorate in theatre and for several yea...more

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Orbital Resonance (Century Next Door #1)

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